


Counting The Ways

by Rainah (RainahFiclets)



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Gen, Plus Finnick JR, Post - Mockingjay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-26
Updated: 2013-08-26
Packaged: 2017-12-24 18:09:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/943046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainahFiclets/pseuds/Rainah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Post-Mockingjay fic</p><p>After the war, Annie is a little less alone than she thought. Family comes about in all sorts of ways, after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Counting The Ways

**Author's Note:**

> My personal headcannon for what happened after Mockingjay. Enjoy!

In the wake of the war of Panem, everything changes. Those who lived had to make a new world. Those who had lost had to learn to live without. And those who had spent their lives fighting were left looking for something else to fight for.

Originally it had been one, lighting the lamps in Finnick’s house in district four. All of victor’s village lies empty, their inhabitants slaughtered in the war, but that was almost a blessing. She can grieve her husband in peace, locked away from the world that gives her beautiful things only to take them away. She has nothing left to give, and in the bright and searing light she lets herself fall apart each day. At night, she pieces herself together (Even though she doesn’t have all the pieces) and lights the lamps, because Finnick always hated letting his house get dark.

(Why, out of everything, did they have to take the piece that was her heart?)

But, as days of grieving drag into weeks and weeks into months, she finds something else to live for. Something inside her. A boy, with deep bronze skin and red hair and a smile that makes it all seem worth it somehow.

He has his father’s eyes.

One becomes two, and Annie slowly puts herself back together. Stitches the pieces with threads of iron will and boundless hope. And if there is a hole where her heart should be, well, she will fill it with the laughter of a boy who will know no hunger or fear of death. One who will never be forced to watch his name on a slip of paper inside a reaping ball, or choke on the decadent horrors of the capitol. One who, when he finds someone he loves, will be able to love them without a thousand phantom hands crawling their way over his body and into his soul.

She loves the boy more than anything, and in him she finds the strength she needs to live again. She will do anything, _anything_ to protect him. Annie and the boy she calls Finn make their world together, though the house is full of ghosts and the lonely light of lamps in the darkness.

It isn’t long after Finn’s arrival that there’s a knock on the door. Annie opens it in her nightgown. Somehow, she already knows. Who else would come?

Johanna Mason rubs the back of her neck awkwardly, mumbling a greeting. And then, being Johanna, she kicks her suitcase with one foot and asks if Annie intends to let her sleep on the front step. Her hair is longer that it was in the quell, but not by much.

With three, the house finally stops seeming so lonely. Her first night there Johanna builds them a raging fire, and only makes a few cutting remarks as Annie goes to light the lamps. “Finnick liked it,” She tells the girl, and Johanna says no more.

Finn likes her, calls her ‘Auntie Jo-na” and begs her to teach him to climb trees. Annie refuses to join them at first. But one day she reaches out a hand to touch the branch. Feels it under her palm, strong and steady. Waiting for her to find the courage. “I want to fly,” She announces, and Johanna gives her the first approving smile she’s seen yet. Annie pulls her way through the branches like she’s swimming, her white-knuckled hands reached for another, just one more. And then she’s at the top, with the air whipping her hair around and stealing her breath, but the tree solid beneath her feet. It’s better than flying. (Though getting down may be a problem)

When they go to the seaside, as everyone in district four often does, it’s a different story. Johanna won’t go near the water. She sits, quite stoically, on the beach as she waits for them to be done.

More than once Annie asks her if she wouldn’t just like to stay home. “I like to watch you and the kid.” Is her response. “Besides, that’s not home.” She’s here for Finnick. They had made a promise to each other, she and him, to watch out for each other. She knew that included Annie, so she figured it included his accidental spawn as well. But she’s not going in the water. If she does it’ll all come rushing back, and she’ll be about as useful as Annie is when the flashbacks come. (But damn Annie for making her want to try.)

She’s not swimming.

What starts as a rough alliance turns into something like friendship over the years. Annie learns to roll her eyes at Johanna’s barbs, and Johanna makes them less often. Together they watch Finn grow.

He never questions the war, or the brief mentions he gets of what was called the Hunger Games. But he knows it has something to do with him, knows by the dark looks the teachers give him whenever they bring it up. The briefest suggestion of it sends his mother into hiding in her room and leaves Johanna cursing. One night he overhears them arguing about it.

"You should throw those into the ocean." Johanna’s voice is harsh, even more so than usual. His mother’s is not. It aches with an old sadness, one that he’s always seen in her.

"They’re just tapes. He deserves to see them."

"And what?" The words are a weapon, anything wielded by Johanna is. "You want him to see that? To know his father was-"

"A good man." Annie interrupts her, voice rising.

"Who killed children when he was fourteen." Johanna spits, and there’s silence for a moment. "To start." Finn is at the top of the stairs, so he can just catch his mother’s words.

"Is this about Finnick’s games, or yours? He’s going to see them either way, Johanna. Both of them."

"Not in front of me."

"Johanna!" He hears a door open and slam closed, and the sound of Annie’s crying.

The next morning she was in the kitchen like nothing had happened, drinking coffee and calling him kiddo. But she leaves at midday to pick something up from the market, and Annie sits him down in the living room for a conversation no parent should have to give.

It almost kills her to do it, to see the way he nods in acceptance. He clamps down on his tears, saves them for a safer time, as she tells him of his father; of her, and why she still needs to hide in her room sometimes; of Johanna, and why she has no family.

He looks so much like his father it hurts.

They’re only taught a very sanitized version in the schools. Annie and Johanna tell him more, but not everything. There are some memories that need to stay buried. They give him enough to know who Finnick was, and why they are the way they are. (And why, sometimes, Annie gets letters from District 12)

Finn eventually becomes a man, and when he’s grown Johanna leaves. It was predictable; District four is not her home. It is the closest thing she’s ever had to a family, but she will never belong among the wind-tossed beaches and sheltered coves. She knows she will have to leave. Annie is stronger than people believe, and will survive. Finn no longer needs her. She allows them both to embrace her once before climbing aboard a train. They promise to write. She can promise nothing.

In district seven no one knows her. Twenty years and raising a mischievous child has aged her beyond recognition. It’s a blessing. She retires to a small house under the treetops, and finally feels like she’s home.

(The neighborhood children both fear and respect her. Not one will set foot onto her perfectly kept lawn.)

She gets letters from them, sometimes. Pictures Finn, knowledge that Annie is safe. They’re a comfort, though she never replies. She’s done her duty, her small penance in the world. Now she can finally rest.

Finn marries, raises his own family. He’s safe, he’s happy. His life is unremarkable, a feat of wonder only in its normality. They wanted nothing more for him.

Annie survives. Nightmares and visions rarely plague her, and when they do she strips down and swims far out enough that she can’t see the land. She visits her grandchildren, admires her son. And every night before bed she lights the lamps, to keep the darkness away.


End file.
